The Magic Keeper's Love
by HPismylife16
Summary: Toni Swan has received her Hogwarts acceptance letter two years later than the usual. She discovers that she is special in the wizarding world. In her life at school, she meets the two red-headed pranksters: Fred and George Weasley! Feelings stir for one of the twins... A/N: I'm bad at summaries! I promise the story is better than you think it is! :D
1. Chapter 1

It's been five whole patient years since Toni Swan last heard Andromeda's prophecy. Though it felt that she had been to her tent just yesterday when her horrible fate had been revealed.

"You have been chosen, my dear. A big responsibility on those frail shoulders of yours. But do not worry. There will be people to guide you on the adventure that you are about to embark on."

"I don't understand what you just said. What kind of responsibility? Which people?"

"Just make sure she's goes to the right places for her security. Okay?" said Andromeda to my elder sister Bella.

"I will. She is MY responsibility." replied Bella reassuringly.

"Very well then. Farewell, my little friend. I hope we shall meet again. You may leave."

Bella and her little sister left Andromeda's tent with the latter one's mind buzzing with unanswered questions. Soon they were lost amidst the sea of people visiting the Annual Cultural Fair which took place in the minute town of Forks, Washington, every winter.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TONI, WILL YOU GET UP?! YOU'LL MISS YOUR TRAIN TO YOUR NEW SCHOOL!" yelled Bella, after yanking the bed covers off her sleeping sister!

"Gimme mmahh bedcover bback…." Toni replied between yawns.

"You've overslept! The train leaves at 11am sharp! Its 10.30am! Get up and get ready quickly! Thank god I booked a hotel room near the station! GET UP!"

"HOLY CRAP?! Its 10.30am?! Why didn't you wake me up earlier?!" Toni leaped off the bed and rushed towards the bathroom.

Bella glared incredulously at her sister.

The sisters reached the King's Cross Station at exactly 10.45am with fifteen minutes to spare! They would have reached earlier, if Bella hadn't started pestering Toni to wear a jumper as it was freezing cold outside in the streets of London. After adding a scarf, gloves and a cap to her attire, Bella was finally satisfied with her sister's look and then they proceeded towards the station.

Both sisters approached a stone barrier between platform 9 and 10 and then Bella came to a stop.

"Why are we stopping here?! I'm gonna miss my train Bel!" cried Toni.

"It's says here that your train is going to leave from station number 9 & ¾." replied Bella while peering into the letter sent from the school.

"What? That's not possible. That platform does not exist! What the hell?!"

This week was getting stranger and stranger for Toni. First, she had to leave her school back at Forks. She missed her friends badly. And second, just a couple of days ago she received a letter from a boarding school in EUROPE, yes…you heard that right….a school from freaking Europe called Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry! The letter said that she was being "specially" invited to become a student there for "urgent" reasons! At first she thought it was a joke. But when Bella told her all about the Andromeda incident from when she was a child, she began to understand what Andromeda really meant 5 years ago. What she said WAS true. She was a child endowed with some extraordinary powers. But still, even after all these years, Toni found that hard to believe.

Two days ago she received another mail from the school along with a ridiculously heavy parcel. The parcel contained her books for her new term in her new school. The most absurd thing was that her acceptance letter and her books did not come by normal post. It was delivered by an OWL! THIS was too much to take!

Even her book list was weird:

1) A Beginner's Guide to Astronomy, Grade 5

2) The Care for Magical Pets and Creatures, Grade 5

3) The Ultimate Help to Master Charms, Grade 5

4) The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5

5) The Art of Divination, Grade 5

6) One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, Grade 5

7) Bathilda Bagshot's History of Magic, Grade 5

8) Potion-Making for Beginners, Grade 5

9) The Transfiguration Boon, Grade 5

Toni figured out from her list that she was starting out as a fifth year student as all her textbooks referred to Grade 5. Her cloud of thoughts was interrupted by Bella. Apparently, she had figured out the way to platform 9 & ¾.

"How do you know where it is? It doesn't even exist!" said Toni.

"It's written on your acceptance letter. Look." replied Bella and pointed towards a small note at the end of the letter."

P.S: Please use the barrier between the platforms 9 and 10 to enter the station from where the Hogwarts Express is going to depart at 11 am sharp. This is for the convenience of keeping the train station concealed from Muggle eyes. I hope your journey is comfortable.

"Toni….you have to go through this barrier." Said Bella, pointing to the barrier they were standing beside.

Toni looked at her sister as if she had grown a second head. "Are you crazy?! You seriously want me to ram into this SOLID wall?!"

"Maybe it isn't as solid as you think it is."

Toni was convinced that her sister had become totally mental.

"What are you waiting for? Go! We don't want you to miss your train! "

Toni realized that the expression plastered on her sister's face was completely serious. She gulped down her nervousness. "Oh right. Magic. Man…are you really serious?" She looked at Bella.

Bella's expression remained unchanged.

Toni heaved a huge sigh. She gave a warm hug to her sister. A tear rolled down her cheek. "Bye. I'm gonna miss you badly. Call me as soon as you reach Washington. Okay?"

Bella looked at her a younger and chuckled. "Oh, really? And please tell me how you are going to do that?" And motioned towards the medium-sized brown tawny owl sitting inside a steel cage, dozing away.

"Oh right." replied Toni with disappointment. She couldn't use her cell-phone AND laptop there. She had to WRITE. And had to send it through her owl. How that was scientifically possible, she had no idea. "Bye then. See you during the holidays."

"Have fun at school. Love you loads! Bye!"

Toni gathered her possessions which included her trunk (which had T.S inscribed with gold on top), her owl cage and her side-bag on her shoulder. She gave one last look to her sister who was smiling at her and waving. She looked at her watch. She had a little more than 5 minutes to catch her train. With a bit of hesitation, she ran into the barrier and disappeared into nothingness.


	2. Chapter 2

TONI'S POV

The first thing which barred my eyes when I entered the station was the whitest smoke I had ever seen coming out from the engine of a train. I glanced at the wall behind me for a moment, from where I had magically appeared from King's Cross Station. It felt as if I just….you know…went THROUGH the wall. Super-weird. I know.

I looked around me. Parents were bustling along and trying to push their children into the train before it leaves. Some kids were running around, playing. You know the little ones. Some children gave goodbye hugs and kisses to their family members and siblings.

I looked at my watch. It was 10.56 am. I had exactly four minutes to get on the train. I looked around helplessly. Then I decided to follow some girls who looked like they were about my age. They were walking briskly towards the 5th coach where people were depositing their trunks and owls. THANK GOD, I don't have to carry that load.

After that, the girls simply got into the next coach to join their friends.

'Here goes nothing' I thought. And then followed the girls into the adjacent coach.

Just as soon as Toni entered the coach no. 6, the train moved an inch forward, signaling its departure. She closed the door behind her. The girls she was following proceeded towards the left corridor. Toni thought that it would be bad if she went after them. Therefore, she took a step forward in becoming independent and moved towards the right corridor.

As she kept walking, Toni realized that most of the compartments were taken away by groups of friends. People kept staring through the glass doors from inside the compartment when she passed them, as if she was some sort of an alien.

It may have been only a couple of minutes, but it seemed hours to Toni, that she was walking through the corridor of the moving train. At last, she found an empty compartment at the very end of the train.

Toni pushed aside the glass door and entered inside. She settled down beside the window after closing the door behind her. She threw her bag-pack on the seat opposite her, and took out her IPod and headphones from her jacket pocket. After inserting the head phones into her ears, she started listening to a song called Skinny Love by an artist called Birdy. Toni began to relax after gazing out at the beautiful scenery of Britain from the window. Finally, her tension began to release from all the pores of her body.

After a few minutes, she took out a book from her bag called The Lost Symbol written by Dan Brown and started reading it. She barely got to finish reading the 1st line of the book, when someone knocked on the glass door of her compartment.

"You can come in." said Toni.

Two boys and one girl entered. They must have been 12 or 13 years old. The girl was fairly thin with long, curly and bushy brown hair, and she was holding an orange cat with squashed face. One of the boys had flaming red hair, as if it was on fire! He had a pretty confused expression on his face, and was holding a rat. Okay….that's awesomely weird. And the other boy had dark hair and was wearing roundish, circular glasses. He looked unexpectedly familiar. He also held a cage which had a snowy, white owl sitting inside it.

The brown-haired girl spoke first. "We're really sorry to disturb you. But we couldn't find an empty compartment. This is the only one left. Can we sit here? It's totally full everywhere else." The two boys nodded in agreement.

A part of Toni wanted to relax and sit alone. But the other, major part wanted to make friends in this new school. Lucky for her that 3 came knocking on the door of her compartment. So, she was happy that she would make a few friends on the train.

"Yeah sure. Why not?" replied Toni while removing her bag from the seat in front of her and keeping it beside her.

TONI'S POV

The three of them entered and the red-haired boy closed the door behind them. The brown-haired girl and the dark-haired boy sat in front, facing me. And the red-haired boy, hesitatingly, sat beside me. The girl's cat bounced from her mistress' hands and settled under the seats to take a small nap. The red-haired boy kept is small wooden rat-cage beside him. And the boy wearing glasses put his owl cage on the luggage rack above.

No one talked for the next few moments. An awkward silence was present. A few seconds later, the brown-haired girl made the first move, again. "Hi. I'm Hermione, Hermione Granger." She thrust her right hand towards me.

"I'm Toni Swan. Nice to meet you!" I replied, while completing the handshake, and gave her a sincere smile.

After seeing me smile, Hermione lightened up a little bit and proceeded to introduce me to her two friends.

"That's Ron, or Ronald Weasley!" Hermione motioned towards her red-headed friend sitting beside me.

I gave him my most loving smile, and then shook hands. "Hi!"

Hermione pointed towards her dark haired friend sitting in front of me. "This is the famous Harry Potter!"

"Nice to meet you Harry. But can I ask why he is famous?"

Harry's friends looked at me as if I had eaten cow dung or something.

With incredulous expressions, Hermione and Ron asked together, "You don't know who he is?"

I looked at Harry. He had a pretty concerned expression on his face. Then I looked at his friends' faces. I answered flatly, "Nope. Who is he?"

Before Ron could reply to my innocently asked question, Hermione gaped at me. "What's that stuffed in your ears? Is it what I think it is?"

After a few seconds, I realized that she was talking about my IPod headphones. "Um….that's the headset to my IPod...-"

"I know what it is!" cried Hermione. "But this means only one thing…you're a -"

"A MUGGLE-BORN!" shouted Ron and Harry together.

"Wha….why did you guys have to shout like that?!" fumed Hermione.

"You have a pretty annoying habit of answering questions all the time. It's very irritating." replied Ron. Harry nodded his head in agreement.

"Oh please Ronald; there have been many an occasion that you…. -"continued Hermione.

Hermione and Ron started arguing. I was beginning to realize that they did this often. I glanced at Harry who had a sheepish smile across his face. He looked clearly ashamed of the behavior of his two friends. I gave him an it's-okay-I-don't-mind-anything smile. He loosened up a bit.

"WILL YOU STOP FIGHTING? GOD….what is wrong with both of you?!" bellowed Harry. Their reaction was instant. They immediately stopped fighting. I'm guessing Harry does this often.

"We have very much established that she is a muggle-born. Now stop bickering. We owe it to Toni to tell her about the wizarding world, because it is very much obvious from her vacant expressions that she has no idea why she's going to Hogwarts. She gave us a place to sit. We have to help. Now we can't do this mate, if you starting engaging in small fights with her every five minutes."

Ron glanced at Hermione, who was looking the other way with her arms crossed, and then he looked at me. "I'm really sorry for that. Lost my nerve a bit, that's all." He elbowed Hermione to apologize to me.

"I'm sorry. Ron can be a big prat at times." Hermione said.

"It's okay. I didn't mind at all. In fact, I found it very amusing." I said.

Ron and Hermione looked at me in a confused manner. Harry and I began to laugh loudly. "Now, could anyone seriously tell me what this Muggle born thing is?"

Obviously, Hermione started to talk, while the other two looked on. "In the wizarding world, humans having no magical powers are called Muggles. When two muggles give birth to a child with magical powers, that child is known as a muggle-born."


End file.
